Tag: Awesome Stuff

View All Tags

/ / / / / / / / / /

Hell Yes, Helicopters! Three Extreme Excursions in Chile

Where: Chile
October 1, 2012 at 3:48 PM | by | Comments (0)

What countries do you think of when it comes to extreme sports? Costa Rica, sure. Switzerland, all right. Australia and New Zealand, definitely. But Chile? CHILE.

Though Chile may be known as the safest country in Latin America, it's not above gassing up a helicopter for some unique adrenaline-addled adventure. Here's the three that figure highest on our bucket list:

· Heli skiing & snowboarding at Valle Nevado
We'll start out easy as almost everyone's heard of heli-skiing, right? If you're experienced, taking a helicopter up to go off-piste means more than just bragging rights; it means stunning Andes views and natural snow conditions. Valle Nevado, being perched on a mountaintop as it is, offers heliski trips that lift off from less than five minutes' walk from the hotels, at a very low cost compared to what you'd pay in Aspen or the Alps.

more ›

/ / / / / / / / / /

Awesome Video Alert: Building a Rolls-Royce Dreamliner Engine from LEGOs

September 10, 2012 at 11:41 AM | by | Comments (0)

You know, over the weekend we tweeted about the video below, but that just isn't enough to convey its awesomeness. So here we lay it down to start you week off right, since the 3+ minutes of engineers building a Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 aircraft engine out of LEGOs could likely be the best thing you view today.

Here's the deal: Rolls-Royce teamed up with the good people at Bright-Bricks, a company that specializes in building large-scale LEGO models to exacting dimensions and detail. What a dream job, truly. Their task: create the Trent 1000 engine, the very engine found in Boeing's 787 Dreamliners flown by ANA and LAN.

Check out the video, in all its glory:

more ›

/ / / / / / / /

Pinpointing Five Locations in Seoul from the Music Video, 'Gangnam Style'

Where: Seoul, Korea
August 29, 2012 at 9:48 AM | by | Comments (0)

Doubtless by now you've seen the music video taking the internet by storm: Psy's "Gangnam Style." As we write this, the YouTube version (posted above) is edging near its 70 millionth view, a staggering number considering it's only been online since July and sits pretty solid atop the YouTube Top 100.

For the uninitiated, Psy is a South Korean pop star though he's also been called a rapper. In this song and video, he pokes fun at the style of Seoul's Gangnam-gu, a flashy district with high rents, high expectations and a focus on the high-status lifestyle. Psy traipses about the city, asserting that he is Gangnam-style and wants a girl similarly so, but there's always a twist; scratching the gilded surface reveals the generic reality.

For all Psy's trendy costumes and big dance moves, the locations happen to steal the show and, though we've been to Seoul in the past, "Gangnam Style" had us yearning for a return visit. Will it impact tourism? There's a very good possibility, but first you've got to know where to go to film yourself mimicking the horse riding dance moves.

Five real-life locations from Psy's music video, "Gangnam Style":

more ›

/ / / / / /

And Now, Either the Greatest or Worst TSA Music Video Ever

August 20, 2012 at 2:04 PM | by | Comments (0)

The last time we posted a TSA YouTube song it was from this guy, who was in the middle of singing one song every day on the Internet. While the lyrics were mostly accurate as far as they went—"if I refuse them groping me then they’ll treat me like a detainee"—it was not exactly an extravaganza of high production values and brilliant songcraft.

By way of contrast let us introduce you to the band Without a Face (Site / YouTube / Facebook / Twitter / MySpace / Bandcamp / Soundcloud). After successfully hitting their goal in a Kickstarter campaign they filmed and released a video for the "The TSA Song."

A week after it was posted on YouTube, it crossed 40,000 views (and continues to climb).

more ›

/ / / / / / / / / / / / / /

Photos and Video: Up, Up and Over Wisconsin in a 1929 Ford Tri-Motor Airplane

August 1, 2012 at 1:05 PM | by | Comments (0)

It has always been said that the state of Ohio is the "birthplace of aviation" (it also happens to the birthplace of your intrepid editor. Coincidence? I think not). Still, head some 40 minutes north of the state line and up into Michigan, and you'll hit a town that serves as the birthplace of the automotive industry.

It's Dearborn, MI, the international home of the Ford Motor Company and former location of Ford Airport, site of many firsts: first U.S. airport hotel, first concrete runway, first U.S. scheduled passenger service, first contracted airmail service, first radio control for a commercial flight and first U.S. passenger terminal. Though the airfield is no more, the planes that earned their wings on it are, somewhat miraculously, still flying.

Around 18 of the 199 Ford Tri-Motors originally produced still have the sun glinting off their corrugated metal wings, the wind through their three radial engines. And two of these 18 were present at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2012, offering rides for $80 per person this past weekend. You know we had to.

more ›

/ / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / /

Jaunted at Oshkosh: Inside One Crazy Day at 'Aviation's Greatest Celebration'

July 30, 2012 at 11:33 AM | by | Comments (0)

Oshkosh, Wisconsin's Wittman Regional Airport has no regularly scheduled flights. And yet it manages to rack up over 90,000 landings every year. It has no impressive passenger terminal. And yet it counts visitors in the millions. What OSH does have, you see, is EAA AirVenture Oshkosh, a massive aviation celebration that swamps the tiny town for one week every summer.

At 8am this past Saturday we landed right in the thick of things, arriving on one of Southwest Airlines' newest, shiniest Boeing 737-700s after a quickie flight up from Chicago-Midway International. Here we could type a slew of fawning adjectives to describe our day (not even a full day!) spent zipping from the expansive cockpits of military transports to reclining in the slim leather seats of private props, but luckily a simple word—a word we maybe whispered and shouted a thousand times at OSH—sums it up: awesome.

more ›

/ / / / / /

Only in Canada: Knitters to Yarnbomb an Entire DC-3 Airplane

Where: Canada
July 24, 2012 at 7:23 PM | by | Comments (0)

Typically we would advise to never combine the words "airplane" and "bomb" in the same sentence, but here goes: A Canadian group of knitters and the Yukon Transportation Museum have combined forces and are planning to yarnbomb a DC-3 airplane. Granted, the plane (formerly of Canadian Pacific Airways) no longer flies; instead it serves as Whitehorse Airport's (YXY) weathervane, mounted on a pedestal and pointing into the wind.

As of July 17, the Yukon Yarnbomb group behind the project had nearly reached their goal of getting enough yarn (and completed blankets sent by donors from around the world!) to cover the entire aircraft. Sewing it on the bird comes next. To get the support they have and progress so far so quickly, the group did their homework to document the plane's individual history and spread the world through the crafting community both online and offline.

more ›

/ / / / / / / / / / / / / /

Inside Ohio's New Liberty Aviation Museum and Ford Tri-Motor Airplane Restoration

July 23, 2012 at 5:15 PM | by | Comment (1)


Yes, that's a plane being restored right there

Hey, did you know that Ford once made airplanes?

It was the 1920s and Henry Ford had a finger in many industries, but aviation took a backseat only to cars. During the period from 1925-1933, 199 Ford Tri-Motors were produced in Dearborn, Michigan and Henry himself blatantly bragged that its all-metal, American-built construction made it the "safest airliner in the world."

Ford Tri-Motors are still puttering around, outliving and outflying countless other airplanes. They've lived crazy lives, for example going from Pan Am to drug smuggling in Central America, doing domestic routes in Cuba to hopping between the Lake Erie Islands. It's that last piece of the Tin Goose's history that's being celebrated with the debut of a new museum at Ohio's Erie-Ottawa Regional Airport (PCW), the former home of Tri-Motor operator Island Airlines.

The Liberty Aviation Museum formally opened on Friday, and we were there for the fanfare. Focusing on World War II, the golden age of aviation and vintage aircraft, the museum covers multiple bases for history lovers. However, it's the Ford Tri-Motor that rings most truly with us, having figured in our personal family history. This is a story, told by my mother, of her first flight ever—onboard an Island Airlines Ford Tri-Motor from PCW to Lake Erie's South Bass Island.

Let's continue.

more ›

/ / / / / / /

The Secret of the Empty Airplane in New York's Central Park

June 22, 2012 at 10:35 AM | by | Comments (0)

There's an airplane in Central Park.

How it got there this week isn't totally clear, but it did not fly to its current position, in Doris C. Freedman Plaza. This airplane is "art," a piece by artist Paola Pivi entitled "How I Roll."

So why's this plane so special? Well for one, this baby is a six-seat 1977 Piper Seneca that is "airborne but flightless," continually rotating 360-degrees, held aloft by its wingtips. Second, we can't remember a time when there's been an entire airplane in Central Park, of any size. Thirdly, it's supposed to evoke a "child's dream come to life."

more ›

/ / / / /

A Time-Lapse Trip to China Has Us Daydreaming of Long-Haul Travel

May 22, 2012 at 1:52 PM | by | Comment (1)

We wouldn’t really consider ourselves easy to impress when it comes to the world of travel, but we are definitely suckers when it comes to airports, airplanes, and a little sprinkle of time-lapse videography.

Things move too quickly for us to identify each and every airport, but there’s plenty of American Airlines, lots of airports, and some snazzy shots of China. Puffy clouds and clear blue skies have us dreaming of escaping to the airport this afternoon, but in the interim we’ll keep watching and daydreaming.

We’ll be sure to keep our eyes out for more options from ‪coolvid679 in the future, but if you’ve got the travel time-lapse thing down to a science be sure to share!

/ / / / / / /

Instagram Your Best 'Untamed Americas' Shot to Win a Prize Pack from National Geographic and Jaunted

May 15, 2012 at 7:05 PM | by | Comments (0)

C'mon—everybody knows that some of the coolest contests out there these days are on Instagram, the photo-sharing mobile app, and now we're thrilled to join 'em. In partnership with the National Geographic Channel to celebrate their coming epic 4-part series "Untamed Americas," we'll be helping you win a load of photography equipment and some spiffy Nat Geo swag.

All you've got to do is submit a photo to Instagram that, for you, defines "Untamed Americas." Okay, you have to do a couple more things as well, and they're detailed below.

Your intrepid Editor here at Jaunted, Cynthia Drescher, will judge the submissions along with Nat Geo WILD’s "America the Wild" Casey Anderson and landscape photographer Cole Rise. We're looking for the theme of "Untamed Americas," creativity, originality and (of course) photographic quality.

more ›

/ / / / / / / /

Get Inside Cathay Pacific's New SFO Lounge, No Matter Your Airline, with a Little 'Klout'

Where: San Francisco International [map], San Francisco, CA, United States
May 10, 2012 at 10:22 AM | by | Comments (2)

What's your Klout score? Wait—don't groan at the question, because finally Klout—the social media influence measurement index or whatever—is useful for something other than sounding super douchey when talking about your "online presence."

You see, Klout just launched an iPhone app. It's free to download and you can do so here, straight from the iTunes store. With this app, you can gain access to Cathay Pacific's new SFO First & Business Class lounge, no matter what airline you're flying or class you're traveling.. The only catch? You've got to have at least a Klout score of 40, and you've got to be traveling from the "A" boarding gates at SFO (list of airlines below).

Not only is this a freaking brilliant idea, but it's going to spoil whoever opts to check it out, since the SFO lounge (Cathay's only lounge in the entire United States), has computer workstations, three shower suites, a noodle bar (featuring the famous Dan dan mien), a booze bar, modern seating areas and free WiFi.

more ›

Previous
Use of this Site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement (effective 3/21/12) and Privacy Policy (effective 3/21/12). © Condé Nast. Your California Privacy Rights. All rights reserved. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast.
Ad Choices